The Daily Mail & General Trust is to sell its US trade show business, George Little Management, in a deal likely to be worth more than $240m (£145m).

DMGT, which owns the Daily Mail and more than 100 regional newspapers, said that it is "reviewing the strategic alternatives" for the division.

GLM is one of North America's larger trade show businesses. It runs about 15, with its flagship event the New York International Gift Fair.

"The strategic review of GLM follows the conclusion that there is limited opportunity to leverage the GLM assets across the wider DMGT group," the company said in a statement.

"And that we should focus our events activities onto fewer areas with exceptional opportunities such as our portfolio of energy shows and our activities in the Middle East both of which are growing strongly and we are excited at the accelerating pace of the launch programme".

The company has appointed Jordan Edmiston, the US-based boutique investment bank, to handle the sale. The process is understood to have reached second-round bids. The initial information memoranda was sent to companies including Reed Elsevier, UBM and Informa.

Analysts at Panmure said that at face value it appeared that the exit price is likely to be below the overall acquisition cost.

Panmure estimates that GLM accounts for just under half of the total earnings made by DMGT's events division, called DMG World Media.

It sees the sale as positive as GLM's assets are "predominantly B2C [business to consumer] and retail" – areas which have struggled in the downturn – "rather than B2B [business-to-business]".

The company makes almost 70% of its operating profits from its business-to-business operation.

Last month Martin Morgan, the chief executive of DMGT, re-iterated that the companyis aiming to exit businesses that don't have growth prospects.

"Portfolio management is an ongoing thing," he said at a trading update. "We see a modest number of small bolt on acquisitions and a few disposals. Not headline grabbing, dramatic news on the M&A front".